LibertyCon, days 2 and 3

Libertycon was its usual fun self over the weekend.  About 750 attendees descended on Chattanooga from all over the country (and a few from overseas), and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

One of the interesting things about working on a collection of short stories is the different backgrounds, perspectives and approaches of the other authors.  I was reminded of this by two gatherings.  First, on Saturday afternoon, Michael Z. Williamson gathered the authors of his forthcoming 'Freehold' anthology, 'Forged in Blood', to discuss their stories and how they developed them.  I daresay we enjoyed hearing from our fellow authors how they'd gone about it even more than the fans in the audience enjoyed the background information.  The anthology is due for release in September.

Then, on Sunday morning, Tom Kratman gathered together the authors he's invited to contribute to a story anthology set in his 'Carreraverse'.  At his invitation, we each described our story ideas, and how we were developing them.  The anthology is still under development, but I think all of us will have submitted our first drafts by late this year, after which Tom will edit them, suggest improvements and alterations, and begin writing the 'bridging' material while we tackle the changes and updates.  If all goes well, the anthology will probably be published in late 2018 or 2019.

The weekend was filled with panels, seminars and presentations.  As usual, the problem was to decide which one absolutely had to attend, and which one had to pass up on as a result!  Miss D. and I had a couple of problems with double-booked slots, as well.  We're going to have to watch that very carefully in future, and try to prevent problems before they arise.  As one becomes better known and receives more speaking assignments, it's not hard for that sort of thing to slip through the cracks.  We don't blame the convention staff, though - they did their usual superb job.  It's just that if they don't know all of your commitments ahead of time, they can't take them into account in their scheduling.

Miss D. and I finally tore ourselves away at midday, and hit the road on the way home.  (It's going to be fun if we're stopped by police.  I collected a few of my guns from Joe Speer after he'd applied his gunsmithing skills to them, as did some of our friends - and they're all in the trunk of our car!  I can almost hear the exchange . . . "Any firearms in the car, sir?"  "Well, how many would you like, officer, and in what calibers and gauges?")  We did a solid nine hours on the road, and reached Maumelle, Arkansas, late in the evening.  We're overnighting at a hotel here that's become a regular stopping point for us, and we'll head out for the rest of our journey home on Monday morning.  It takes a lot longer to drive to and from Libertycon than to fly, but the costs are similar (even including car rental, gasoline and hotels);  we don't have to worry about airlines treating us like cattle;  and there are no TSA goons behaving like jackbooted thugs!  I can put up with a lot of driving in exchange for that . . .

I'll queue up a post or two to pop up during the day.  Regular blogging will resume on Tuesday.

Peter